Vice-Provost begins Presidency of the Academy of Medical Sciences

Publication date:
25 November 2011

Professor Sir John Tooke, Vice-Provost (Health) at UCL, has
today begun a five year term as President of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
He takes over from Professor Sir John Bell who retired yesterday having led the
Academy to significantly increased prominence and influence.

UCL Institute of Neurology PhD
student, Hannah Golden, is embarking on a project to understand the causes of
hearing problems in Alzheimer’s disease, thanks to an £88,000 grant from
Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK’s leading dementia research charity. It’s hoped
the study, which is the one of the first of its kind, could improve diagnosis
and lead to new ways of helping patients cope with their symptoms.

A study published in Neuron
last week, conducted at UCL's Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, shows that the
conventional view of how our brains learn has to be revisited. Previously, it
was thought that the dopaminergic inputs that the ventral striatum receives
from mid-brain structures signal a reward prediction error which facilitates
learning from rewards. However, the study conducted by Miriam Klein-Flugge,
Tim Behrens and colleagues, found that in situations where
learning does not depend on rewards, the ventral striatal signal flexibly
adapts and instead reflects a behaviourally relevant teaching signal, while the
mid-brain still encodes the classic reward prediction error. Read: Wellcome Trust Blog

Lottolab officially opens at Science Museum

New UCL Neuroscience Domain chair announced

Publication date:
14 November 2011

Congratulations
to Professor Trevor Smart, Schild Professor of Pharmacology and Head of
the Research Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology, who has
been appointed the Chair of the Neuroscience Domain.

Myths about our minds

Publication date:
8 November 2011

Professor Sophie Scott (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience)
examines some myths about the brain, including the common misconception
that we only use 10% of our brain's capacity. Read: BBC News Online

Galton Inaugural Lecture: Neurological disease – Nature and Nurture

Publication date:
7 November 2011

Now, as the health sciences finally enter a golden age of genetics, the relevancy of the Galton Chair has never been greater. This was the message of Professor Nicholas Wood’s inaugural lecture, which he delivered to a packed auditorium of colleagues, friends and family at UCL on 19 October. Read more on the UCL Events blog...